


Atmospherics

by AJHall



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Disrespect to Auntie; Voice like a dragon trapped inside a hollow mountain, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-18
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJHall/pseuds/AJHall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever wondered why the Haradrim came out in support of Mordor, practically to the last man, woman, corsair and oliphaunt?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Atmospherics

_Sauron was indeed caught in the wreck of Numenor, so that the bodily form in which he long had walked perished, but he fled back to Middle-earth, a spirit of hatred borne upon a dark wind. He was unable ever again to assume a form that seemed fair to men...._ [ _Return of the King_ , Appendix A]

"Form, maybe. Nobody said anything about voice," the Dark Lord purred.

No-one becomes an Evil Overlord without a certain level of adaptability.

So Sauron turned his malice and his ingenuity to the properties of crystals. He sent agents privily to the dwarves of Moria, seeking out from among the dwarven kindred always those artificers who were of a solitary bent, most especially those who shunned all contact with dwarven women and who spent their days labouring in lonely workshops far from the sun's rays, working ever with clockwork and with silica and communicating only with those of their kind who spoke of naught but the mysteries of the same. At his command they executed strange, secret commissions, though never knowing in whose service they laboured.

When they had finished, the fruits of their labours were wrapped in lambs-wool and in woodshavings for protection against the hazards of the road. Waggoners carried them from Moria down to the great Bay of Belfalas and there loaded them upon the ships which plied their trade down past the mouths of Anduin into the strange lands of Harad and Far Harad, in the far South of Middle-earth where even the constellations were changed. And in the bazaars of those lands the fruits of the dwarves' labours were sold as toys of great ingenuity and reached even into satraps' mansions and the palaces of princes.

And when that was accomplished the Dark Lord stood upon the topmost pinnacle of the tower of Dol Guldur and laughed.

"You have to speak to these people in the languages they understand," he said.

There was a man they called "Reeth", who wandered the cities and towns of the Haradrim. In the harsh, unmusical tongue of his birthplace in South Gondor far to the North he may have borne another name, but he never vouchsafed it to anyone. One evening he found himself in a city he knew well, far in the South of the realm, a city he had visited many times before, though he had not been back for some years. He came to the house of a carpet-maker, of whom he had been a guest friend for many years. He was welcomed in with great joy, offered warm water to wash the dust of the road from him, sherbert to slake his thirst and a seat of honour under the almond tree in the inner courtyard.

"For," the carpet-seller told him, "you arrive just at the hour of the evening when we are wont to gather round, and hear a marvel."

Even as he finished speaking the sounds of a bell sounded, and the carpet-seller pointed with reverence to a polished wooden cabinet which sat in the middle of the courtyard, from which the sounds emanated.

"A music box!" Reeth said, and his friend the carpet-seller smiled.

"A box of wonders," he corrected. "Listen."

And the box spoke.

"Welcome. This is Radio Free Harad, the voice of the voiceless peoples of Middle-earth, the voice of those who strive against the oppressive imperialist expansion of Gondor. Welcome."

In that moment Reeth's world was changed. For the voice which came drifting from the box into the warm, almond-scented air of the courtyard was at once smoke and dragon fire, molten gold and steaming blood and the aromatic fumes of the hashish pipe.

Many months of wearisome journeying later, Reeth stood before the gates of Dol Guldur in the southernmost fastnesses of Mirkwood.

The door wards looked him up and down, for long had it been since any man had come voluntarily to seek admission there.

"And what business are we to inform the Necromancer brings you here?" they demanded.

Reeth set back his head. "Tell him I come to enter his service."

"Serve him? And as what?"

"As his director of communications. For a good start oft falls by the wayside for want of direction. I have heard his voice from a wooden box in the far South of this land, and it has drawn me here. But if he wishes to draw others to follow the path I have beaten to his door, then he would do well to heed my counsel."

And the door wards looked at each other and it was plain they had but a single thought.

"Come," they said, "it is best the Dark Lord hears such counsel directly from the lips of the man who bears it."

So Reeth came within the presence of the Dark Lord and his heart quailed within his breast.

"So," said the Dark Lord, "you believe my communications lack direction?"

And his voice in the same room had a hundred times the power of that voice Reeth had heard from the box in the carpet-maker's courtyard so many leagues to the South, for that had been but a shadow and a simulacrum and this was the true voice of Sauron.

But Reeth stood the straighter though his knees were trembling and his skin the colour of wet ashes and he said, "I have heard your voice from a wooden box in the far South of this land, and it has drawn me here. But if you wish your voice to be heard in every corner of Middle-earth and not just in the courts of the Haradrim then you have need of me. For I will build you an army of servants to deliver your message, marching beneath a common device and sharing a common slogan."

"Slogan?" asked the Dark Lord.

"'Slogan' is what they call a battle cry in the land of my birth," said Reeth. "I had thought that 'nation shall speak peace unto nation' might fit the occasion."

And at that the Dark Lord laughed. "I think, after all, I do have a use for you. For this communications business is time-consuming, and I have wars and intrigues to plan across the whole of Middle-earth. The time of the personal broadcast is over; the time of the spokesman is at hand."

So Reeth entered into the service of the Dark Lord, but from then on he no longer bore that name, but was known only as "The Mouth of Sauron."

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [certain casting news from New Zealand](http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/cumberbatch-lends-voice-to-hobbit-16013066.html)


End file.
